So Peculiar, Wait and See
by Fortunas.Wheel
Summary: A few missing scenes that I believe should have been in Tiny. This could be a one-shot (in which it remains angst) or there could be more chapters added (for a happyish ending). Red Beauty, but mostly Snow's POV.
1. Chapter 1

She couldn't quite remember when she realized there was something there. Had it been at the diner, watching Ruby smile more broadly than she had since before the curse? Or maybe it was in the way Ruby was raving about Jules Verne, an author she hadn't known existed, let alone cared about, before Belle entered the scene. Perhaps it was that new route Ruby had been taking around town, the one that _always_ went past the library. Whatever it was, Snow had known something was up. She knew her best friend was in love.

"You ever gonna tell her?" Snow had asked at Granny's one day. Belle had left moments before, and the air still held her distinctive scent. Honeysuckle mixed with lavender. Strange, but very appropriately Belle.

Ruby had been watching Belle's retreating form wistfully, and Snow had worried that her question would be ignored when Ruby finally answered, eyes still watching the door. "Tell her what?"

Snow dropped her chin and raised an eyebrow. "Are we really going to play this game?"

"There's nothing to tell," Ruby sighed, finally straightening herself up. "Belle loves Gold, and there's nothing I can do about that. What's the point in complicating anything?"

"Ruby," Snow said, clasping her best friend's hands over the counter, "love always wins. If you're meant to be with her, it will happen, but she needs to know how you feel first."

"No, Snow," Ruby replied with a sad smile. "People like me don't get happy endings like those. Besides, we know that she really loves Gold. True love's kiss breaking the curse and all that jazz."

"I think you're wrong," Snow said. "But I don't have time to argue with you this morning. I promised David he could take me to the mines and show me the fairy dust they're collecting. But we're continuing this conversation soon, okay?"

"Whatever you say, your majesty," Ruby retorted with a small smirk.

But then there was the accident, and suddenly that conversation seemed meaningless. Belle was no more, and a girl named Lacey who hated books, iced tea, and pancakes was now sitting in her place. Snow had tried in vain to comfort Ruby after that first hospital visit, but her tears had continued late into the night.

"I shouldn't have let them drug her!" Ruby had wailed, "I should have fought for her, I should have told her she was right!"

"No, sweetie" Snow had replied, pulling Ruby in closer to her form, "Lacey isn't Belle. Telling her those things could only upset her more."

"But you didn't see her! Belle is in there somewhere, I swear it."

Snow knew it was a moot point to bicker over, so she decided to shift gears. "Tell me more about the Belle _you_ know."

And Ruby had, sometimes breaking down into tears in the process. She'd told Snow about how Belle had different laughs for different topics, and how her nose crinkled certain way right before she was going to sneeze. Ruby had regaled her with stories about their exploits at the library, each trying to find a book the other would adore. She told Snow about the night Ruby got to wrap her arms around Belle in front of Gus and how perfect they felt there. How she had wanted to kiss her that next night in the library, but had chosen to handcuff her instead. That had been a particularly weepy moment in Ruby's stories.

It was only when Ruby had talked herself hoarse and cried herself dry that she had fallen into a fitful sleep on Snow's couch. Snow never left her that night, instead opting to stroke Ruby's hair whenever the nightmares she was clearly having became too real.

* * *

"Who are you?" Lacey asked from her hospital bed.

"My name is Mary Margaret. I'm-"

"Let me guess. You were my friend before that accident happened, and you're here to tell me that I imagined everything and that I used to be this wonderful, lovely person who is now gone and replaced with a mentally unstable harlot. Please, do tell me when I'm getting warmer."

"Well, no," Snow replied. "We weren't really friends. I had just met you, actually."

Lacey's eyes narrowed. "So why are you here?"

"You were very close to my best friend, so I just wanted to-" Snow started.

Lacey snorted. "Sorry, please continue. This sounds _fascinating_."

Snow put her hands up in front of her. "I'm sorry, this was a bad idea. Just- just forget I was ever here."

She turned to leave the hospital room when Lacey spoke again. "No, I'm sorry, that was rude. Please don't go."

Snow turned back around and stared at this stranger living in Belle's body. She had no idea _how_ Ruby could claim that Belle was still in there somewhere, but Snow loved her best friend, and she was going to try her damnest to prove Ruby right.

Taking a deep breath, Snow began again, "I sometimes come into the hospitals and read to patients. Since Ruby told me you didn't seem to like the book she brought you, I thought I might try telling you a story instead. Would that be okay with you?"

Lacey shrugged. "Does it involve sex?"

"It involves love. Is that good enough?"

"I suppose it'll do," Lacey replied.

Snow settled down into the only chair in the room, her eyes catching a discarded book half under the hospital bed. She tucked that fact away in her brain, under the things-Ruby-can-never-hear-about file.

"Once upon a time," Snow began, "there was a girl who'd had a pretty rough journey. She'd lost her love and her family, but had finally found a new home. She loved her new home, but she never quite felt like she fit in. Everyone around her loved her, and she wanted to believe it. The only problem was that she thought she was a monster. How could they ever truly love a beast?"

"Was she hairy or something?" Lacey interjected.

"Umm, well, it was really dependent on the time of the month," Snow reasoned.

"Wait, what?"

"Sorry, that came out oddly," Snow said, furrowing her brow. "Anyway, this girl had resigned herself to living a life alone, a life without love. And then she met someone, a wonderful someone. This someone could see the girl's light, and was able to get the girl to see it too. For the first time in a long time, the girl felt like she could belong."

"Let me guess," Lacey said. "There was a whirlwind romance, he knocked her up, and now they're happily married with two kids and a minivan?"

"It wouldn't be a very good story if everything was that easy, would it?" Snow asked.

"I can think of a few people who like their happy endings to go that way," Lacey mused. "Easy, I mean."

Snow looked scandalized. "I don't-" she started. "You know what? This really was a bad idea. I should be going."

"What, you're not going to tell me how the story ended?"

"I don't know how it ends," Snow said as she stood up. "That someone is missing now and the girl is devastated."

"How did he go missing?" Lacey asked.

"_She_ was in love with a real monster, and the girl was too noble to do anything about it. So the girl stayed out of the way. But the monster had many enemies and didn't realize how precious that someone was. She got hurt as a result."

"The girl got hurt or the someone got hurt?"

Snow was silent for a moment. "Both, I suppose."

"Some love story," Lacey huffed.

"It's not over yet," Snow replied. "True love always finds a way."

The two women were silent for a moment as Snow headed towards the door.

"Have a nice day, Lacey," Snow said before she left the room

Lacey watched Snow leave with a perked eyebrow before resuming the TV watching she had been engaged in pre-Mary Margaret. The only, well biggest, problem was that the show was boring and repetitive. Lacey had been able to figure out who the killer was within the first few minutes of every episode, and having Mary Margaret talk over the first fifteen of this one did nothing to slow her down. By the end of the episode, she was convinced that Miami had the most inadequate police force in the country. Possibly the world.

With a sigh, Lacey turned off the television and leaned over the side of her hospital bed, retrieving the book she had tossed under there the day before. _The Mysterious Island_ gleaned on the cover, and the pages were slightly worn, as though the book had been read many times in a short period.

Lacey flipped the book opened, and thumbed through the pages, searching for a single picture to ease the monotony of the pages upon pages of letters. After a minute of searching, Lacey got to the last page of the novel, where a piece of paper had been tucked in.

_Dear Ruby,_

_Wasn't this amazing? We'll have so many things to discuss! I believe Jup's death at the end was the signal to the end of their animalistic existence. Even so, it felt especially tragic. Wasn't the island exploding enough?_

_I hope you appreciated Aryton as much as I did. His redemption arc was my favourite because it came through love and loyalty. When he believed he was deserving of love, he was able to love in return and be the man we all knew he was. It was truly beautiful. We'll need to talk about this once you've finished this book. You better not have skipped to the end for spoilers!_

_Love, _

_Belle_

"Wow," Lacey sighed. "What a nerd."

Ruby had watched Lacey flip through the book from the shadows of the hall. She had internally cringed with every wince of Belle's face at the words. Ruby's heart had broken when Lacey read Belle's letter with a smirk on her face, as though it were a thing to be mocked. By the time Lacey had finished the note, Ruby had already turned around. She didn't need to see any more of that.

"And she was _my_ nerd," Ruby whispered sadly as she walked away.


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as Ruby entered Lacey's wing of the hospital, she could tell something was off. Regina's distinctive scent filled the air, and the stronger it became, the more worried Ruby got. By the time she was one corridor away from Lacey's location, she was running, only slowing down when she entered the room.

Lacey was asleep. At least, she looked like she was asleep. The consistent beating of the heart monitor told Ruby she was alive, but the slightly perturbed look on Lacey's face and the heavy odor of Regina in the air made the hair on the back of Ruby's neck raise.

"Lacey?" she said tentatively as she dropped her bag and put a hand on Lacey's shoulder. Even though she knew it wasn't Belle's shoulder anymore, Ruby couldn't help the way her body craved the contact. How it needed the connection to Belle, even though her brain knew she wasn't even in the room.

"Lacey?" She said again, louder, shaking Bell- no, Lacey's shoulder a little bit harder.

Panic began to consume Ruby. What if Regina had put her under a sleeping curse? How could they ever wake her up when Lacey didn't love anyone? "Lacey, c'mon," Ruby said as she began to shake her even harder, frantically. "You have to wake up now."

"Mmm," Lacey grunted without opening her eyes. "Why?"

"Because I brought you goodies," Ruby replied as she took a step back, letting her breath out slowly. Her body remained on edge even though the sense of dread that had been filling her a millisecond before was quickly evaporating.

"Wait," Lacey said, suddenly opening her eyes and sitting straight up in bed. "That woman? Where did she go? And what did she do to me?"

"Short, black hair? Wearing some sort of powersuit? Kind of looks like a psychopath?" Ruby asked.

"I suppose," Lacey replied.

"It looks to me like she knocked you out," Ruby said, and then nodded to the other side of the room. "And went through your purse too."

"Why would she do that?" Lacey asked.

"She's a little bit nutso, and your boyfriend has a tendency to bring out the extra crazy in her. I'm betting she was trying to find something out about him through you." Ruby answered.

"I don't have a boyfriend."

Neither woman spoke as the words hung in the air between them for a moment. Finally, Lacey cleared her throat. "So," she began, "you said you brought me goodies?"

"That I did," Ruby responded with a smile. She turned to pick up the sack she had placed on the floor. It wasn't a basket like last time, but rather a hemp bag. "I wasn't sure what your taste in movies was, so I brought you the full spectrum. We've got _How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, The Godfather, Forrest Gump, Clerks, Rizzoli and Isles, Mean Girls, The Princess Bride, _and _Bull Durham_. Also, there's a few magazines in here, and some freshly baked cookies in case the hospital food sucks as much as they say it does on TV."

"Wow, thank you," Lacey said as Ruby handed her the goodie bag. "I was afraid for a moment that you'd just give me more books."

"Yeah, no problem," Ruby replied slowly, trying to keep her face expressionless. After a beat, she began turning to leave the room. "I'll see you later on, okay? And watch out for that woman. She's bad news."

"Wait," Lacey said. "You're not gonna stay here and watch some of these with me?"

Ruby's heart clenched at the thought, and she wondered if that would only welcome more pain. But Regina was on the warpath, and Snow had told her that Cora was in tow. If they'd already come after Belle once, what was to stop them again?

"Yeah, okay," Ruby said, shrugging off her coat as she walked closer to the bed again. "Which one do you want to start with?"

* * *

Lacey awoke with a start, blinking her eyes quickly so they could adjust to the darkened room. The TV was on across from her with the home screen for _Mean Girls_ running and the volume nearly muted. But that only held Lacey's attention for a moment. Ruby was asleep in the room's only chair, curled into herself like a pup with the TV's remote control balancing precariously on her thigh.

A smile crept across Lacey's face as she took in the scene. Ruby had stayed, even when Lacey was sure she was going to leave. She had stayed for an entire night of movie watching, magazine perusing, and intermittent questions that got less awkward as the night went on. When they had gotten hungry, they'd shared Belle's dinner (mostly untouched) and the cookies Ruby had brought (all gone). When Ruby had gotten an urgent phone call, she had left, but then returned. And when Lacey had closed her eyes, sure that Ruby would be gone when she woke up, she had been proven wonderfully wrong. Ruby was here, but it wasn't for Belle, it was for _her_.

The clock in the room told Lacey it was 3:25 AM; there was no chance of Ruby waking up and leaving at that hour. Lacey crept out of her bed, pulling the top cover with her. When she reached Ruby, she placed the blanket gently on her friend's sleeping form, tucking the edges ever so slightly to make sure it didn't fall off in the night.

"Thank you for staying," Lacey whispered as she crept back over to her side of the room.

* * *

It was during the second day of Ruby camping out at the hospital, only leaving for shifts at the diner and showering, that the topic came up. The intro had been innocuous enough. Lacey had asked Ruby when the last time she had gone on a date was. Girl talk. Nothing intense.

"Not for a long time," Ruby said as she reached over Lacey's lap for another French fry. The two women were sitting on opposite sides of the hospital bed, the remains of two burger meals sitting between them.

"Well, that's boring," Lacey replied.

"It's not like I'm a total hag," Ruby said, "I mean, I got asked on one just last month. I just didn't want to go was all."

"Oh? Do tell how you got out of that one."

"Well, it was at the diner, and Belle saw how uncomfortable I was," Ruby began, as a dreamy look flickered across her face, her smile widening as she spoke. "So she came over, and she sort of wrapped her arm around my waist and told him I was busy. He laid off after that."

Ruby could feel Lacey's eyes boring into her and froze. Had she said too much? It felt like she was sitting with Belle, the falsity of the security blanket she wanted so badly to believe in tugging at the edges of her brain. This all was too intense, especially when Ruby knew it was a lie.

"Ruby," Lacey said, her voice a coarse whisper. "Ruby, look at me."

Ruby lifted her head up, staring at Lacey from across the hospital bed. The space between the two women felt wrought with tension, as if either one could make the universe implode with a single movement.

Lacey looked deeply into Ruby's eyes. "You loved her, didn't you?"

Ruby averted her gaze once more, refusing to let Lacey see the answer. That was something that Belle, and only Belle, deserved to hear first. If Ruby confirmed it now, then whenever Belle came back, she would learn that fact, that _crucially_ important fact, through Lacey's filter. That wasn't something she could allow.

"It's not like that," Ruby responded, her voice carrying even less conviction than she felt. It wasn't technically a lie though. Ruby hadn't _loved _her. _Loved_ implied that the feeling had gone away, that the feeling could go away.

"Then why were you so uncomfortable?" Lacey pushed, not dropping her gaze.

"I wasn't!" Ruby protested quickly. "Belle could never make me uncomfortable."

Lacey tilted her head, appearing to choose her next words carefully. "Ruby, I meant the guy who was asking you on the date."

"Oh," Ruby replied. There was a faint blush rising in her cheeks, and she looked more like a deer caught in headlights than the self-assured woman she usually was. "My last relationship ended bad. Like really bad."

Lacey looked like she was about to respond, but Ruby's cellphone chose that moment to go off.

"Hold on," she said, looking at the display, "it's Sn- Mary Margaret."

The phone call was quick, and as soon as it was over, Ruby stood up, grabbing her jacket off the chair. "I've gotta get out of here, there's a bit of an emergency. Call me if you need anything. I'll be back later, I promise."

* * *

Ruby did come back a couple hours later with a duffle bag and a small boy in tow. He had introduced himself as Henry after a joke about Lacey being his new step-grandmother had failed to do anything but utterly confuse her and make Ruby's face contort into alarm.

"You don't know who you are, do you?" Henry asked Lacey, his eyes reflecting some mix of pity and determination.

"I do," she replied coolly. "Lacey Harris. Look, my wristband says it and everything."

Henry looked unimpressed with the identifier as she held out her wrist, but he looked at it all the same, examining it with the same expression he had been wearing since his quip about family had failed.

"C'mon," Ruby said, cutting the conversation short. "We need to get you dressed and packed. It's not safe here anymore. I grabbed some clothes from your apartment for you to change into."

Lacey accepted the duffle bag from Ruby and opened it up quickly. Inside of it was a navy blue blouse, a flowy skirt with a yellow floral design, and some other necessities to make sure Lacey didn't look like a total slob when she left the hospital. Lacey eyed the yellow skirt wearily. Yellow was _the_ most hideous color in existence. Whose wardrobe did this even come from? Who would even pay money for something this frilly? The woman they all kept claiming she was?

"Me and Henry will go wait in the hall while you change," Ruby said. "We'll knock in a few minutes, okay?"

Lacey nodded in assent, and Ruby and Henry left the hospital room, shutting the door behind them.

It was when Lacey was staring at the clothing, wondering just what kind of person would choose hideously colorful crap over black or grey tones that Belle's neglected cellphone went off. Lacey stared at it as it rang, the ringtone some horrible piano piece, before answering it tentatively. "Hello?"

Ruby knocked on the door after about five minutes, and when she didn't get a response, she opened it, telling Henry to remain in the hall where she could see him.

"Lacey?" She said as she walked in the room. "You ready?"

Lacey was sitting against the side of the bed, dressed in Belle's clothing, but somehow looking nothing like the clothing's owner. Tear tracks streaked down her face, and she was clutching Belle's cellphone in her hand with such a vice grip that Ruby was sure her knuckles couldn't get any whiter.

"Hey, you okay?" Ruby asked, crossing the room in three strides to get to Lacey's side. She tried to place a hand on Lacey's shoulder, but the other woman shrugged away, seemingly not wanting to be touched in any way.

"No, I'm not okay," Lacey said with a shaky voice.

"What happened?" Ruby asked slowly, shocked that Lacey had answered at all.

"Everyone keeps telling me who I am, that I'm this Belle girl!" Lacey fumed, her voice on the precipice of sadness and anger. "But I know who I am. I'm Lacey Harris. I was raised in Melbourne and I moved here when I was 16 with my father. I like to dance, and watch TV, and flirt!"

Lacey stopped, and wiped away some of her tears that had started up again.

"I hate books!" She continued. "I don't like putting other people first or being brave, and I certainly don't like being told what to do. So why does everyone keep telling me who I am, what I like, and what I'm supposed to be doing?"

Ruby had no words. There was nothing she could say to make this better. There were no words that could make the sobs escaping Lacey stop. Instead, she did the only thing she knew how. In a swift motion, Ruby pulled Lacey into a hug, holding the other woman tightly until she could feel Lacey collapsing into her, head resting in the crook of Ruby's neck as she sobbed. When Ruby felt tears falling onto her neck, she pulled Lacey even closer, only letting herself believe for a moment that it could actually be Belle.

They stayed that way for a while, only breaking when Henry awkwardly walked into the room, Ruby's cellphone in hand, and announced that Grumpy was getting, well, grumpy over having to wait for them at the safe house. Lacey had pulled away first, wiping her eyes.

"C'mon," Ruby said, keeping a hand gently on Lacey's shoulder. "Let's get out of here."

* * *

The "safe house" ended up being Belle's apartment above the library.

"No one would think to look here," Ruby reasoned as she opened the front door with her own key. "Hiding in plain sight and whatnot. Plus, we'll be able to hear anyone coming."

Henry and Lacey trailed in behind her, while Grumpy and three other dwarves remained outside the front door with their pickaxes in tow. "Can't be too careful, sister." Grumpy had explained when Lacey initially looked at their weapons with a raised eyebrow.

"I know you probably feel grimy from the hospital," Ruby said when the front door shut behind them. "The bathroom is through the bedroom over there. All the clothes in the room should be your size."

Lacey nodded. She could tell she was being dismissed for the moment, and without another word, she walked into the bedroom and shut the door.

It was beautifully and elegantly decorated, with soft colors dominating and bright tones used to accessorize. Books were piled in various places around the room; on the bedside table, under the window sill, near the door that led to the bathroom. There were also pictures that dotted the room, mostly of landscapes and flowers. One, however, caught Lacey's attention.

The photo – well, strip of photos – was tucked into the bottom left corner of the mirror. It showed four pictures of Ruby and, presumably, Belle making funny faces in a photo booth. Each shot was more ridiculous than the one before it, except for the last one. In the bottom photo, Belle was kissing Ruby on the cheek. The pose wasn't the striking part about that photograph though. Instead, it was the look on Ruby's face. She was beaming. She was beautiful.

Lacey pulled the photo from the mirror and examined it, absorbing the fact that one of the faces in every frame was identical to her own. How was that possible? Who was this Belle girl? Were Lacey and her actually one in the same? The very thought made her head spin, and brought back memories of that dark room she had been in for so long.

The walls started closing in around her and, forgetting that she had been de facto dismissed, Lacey opened the bedroom door up, Henry's voice suddenly cutting through the silence that had been the bedroom. His voice brought her back to reality, brought her back to where she was actually standing.

"So she has no idea who she is anymore?" He asked.

"It doesn't seem like it," Ruby replied softly.

"Have you tried true love's kiss?" Henry asked as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Gold did." Ruby answered. "It didn't work."

"I asked if _you_ tried," Henry said, exasperation seeping into his voice. "I get that she's my grandpa's girlfriend, but I'm not stupid. I know true love when I see it."

"And how do you know so much about true love?" Ruby replied. "Is there a lady love you haven't told me about?"

Lacey couldn't hear either speak audibly for a moment, though it sounded as though Henry grumbled something like "Grace."

"Ha! I knew it!" Ruby said triumphantly. She was met with a groan from Henry, followed by a hasty question about whether she had seen the latest episode of _Young Justice_.

Lacey shut the bedroom door silently, no longer interested in the conversation's detour, but rather invested in the thought that was nagging at the back of her head. Why hadn't Ruby answered the question?

* * *

They had been at Belle's home for about five hours when there was a knock at the door. The three of them had gotten sucked into an _America's Next Top Model_ marathon after Lacey had emerged from the bedroom showered and dressed. She was wearing the only pair of jeans she could find in the bedroom and an over-sized t-shirt she had assumed was for intended for sleeping. Henry had protested when the show had first been turned on, but quieted down after about 30 seconds. Lacey assumed it was because he had been raised with good manners. Ruby _knew_ it was actually because of the scantily clad women running around in heels.

When the knock happened, Ruby had stood up quickly, placing herself in front of both Lacey and Henry. "Stay here," she growled as she walked towards the door, eyes narrowed and senses alert for danger. When she looked through the peephole, Emma's face stared back at her.

"Ruby, it's really me," Emma called through the door.

"What's your favorite song?" Ruby replied, raising her voice to be heard through the door.

"A Thousand Miles," Emma hollered back, her tone eerily similar to the exasperated one Henry had adopted earlier.

Ruby opened the door quickly, not wearing her characteristic grin that usually accompanied Emma's favorite song confession.

"What's going on?" Ruby asked as Emma walked into the apartment. Henry had already made his way over to the two of them, and had wrapped his arms around Emma's waist tightly.

"Kid, go into the other room for a sec?" Emma said, looking down at Henry. He rolled his eyes, but ultimately did what he was asked and walked obligingly into the kitchen.

"So, what happened?" Ruby asked in a low tone once Henry was safely out of earshot and Lacey had returned to watching television.

"Cora is dead," Emma replied in an identical tone. "Mary Margaret did some curse thing and now Gold is fine, Cora is dead, and Regina is on the warpath."

Ruby felt her heart drop into her stomach. Snow had killed? "Oh my gods," she said softly, covering her mouth with her hand in horror.

"Honestly, I don't know who I'm more worried about at this point," Emma continued. "Mary Margaret is just a mess, David looks like he got kicked in the gut, and Regina must just be…"

"Broken," Ruby finished for Emma.

"Yeah," Emma nodded. "I'd try to go find her just to see how she is if I wasn't afraid of her killing me on sight."

Neither spoke for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. "We should probably be going," Emma said, finally breaking the silence. "Regina won't do anything to hurt Henry. He's the only thing she really loves anymore."

Ruby nodded. "I should probably go too. I need to see Snow."

"Good luck," Emma replied solemnly. "She's not talking to anyone right now. I think she's in shock."

There was nothing left to say, and after Emma had called for Henry, the two of them left with the promise to keep Ruby updated on the Regina situation.

Ruby turned to face Lacey, who looked like she had caught more of the conversation than she was supposed to. In that moment, Ruby forced herself not to care. Gold would be coming around any minute now, and Snow _needed_ her best friend right now. Lacey would be fine in Gold's hands, no matter how slimy they were.

"I've gotta go," Ruby said to Lacey, grabbing her coat and bag off the chair they had been tossed onto earlier. "Mr. Gold will probably come by later and try to explain what's going on. He's not the nicest guy, but he loves you." Ruby paused, inhaling slowly, thinking how to word what she was going to say next. "Just try to hear him out, okay?"

Lacey nodded silently and watched Ruby move back towards the door.

"I'll come back when I can," Ruby said right before walking out and leaving Lacey alone. Leaving Lacey alone in an apartment that she knew belonged to her, but where she didn't belong in the slightest. Leaving Lacey alone to be swept up into Gold's web once more.

* * *

**A/N: **Wow, thanks for the support everyone! I'm planning on there only being one more chapter after this one. Don't worry though; Belle will be back sooner rather than later.


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